With electrosurgical appliances, different instruments may be connected to a single electrosurgical apparatus. In order to adjust the electrosurgical apparatus to correspond to the connected instrument, it is disclosed, for example in DE 43 39 049 C2, that coding may be provided to the apparatus via a resistance that is present in the connected instrument and its electrical connection to the electrosurgical apparatus, such that the data on the connected instrument can be read from a reference list and the electrosurgical apparatus may be adjusted based on the identified connected instrument.
In many cases, monopolar instruments are used in electrosurgery, during which a neutral electrode is stuck onto a skin segment of a patient. Neutral electrodes of this kind are often equipped with two or more active surfaces to enable determination of the correct seating of the neutral electrode on the patient's skin segment. Neutral electrodes of this kind are used in an extremely wide variety of embodiments, depending upon what surfaces or surface sizes are required. For example, it is quite conceivable that neonatal surgery will require the use of different neutral electrodes than those used in operations on adult patients. This means that, depending upon the neutral electrode used, the operating parameters of the electrosurgical apparatus will need to be at least partially adjusted. This is not only labor-intensive, but there is also the risk that errors could occur, which, particularly in this field of technology, could have fatal consequences.